Vinegar and Baking Soda, the new Mr. Clean

When I first found out I was pregnant, many thoughts went racing through my head. There were so many different things that were not allowed from cleaners to medicines to jumping on trampolines (because that is something I do ALL THE TIME, I kid, I kid). As soon as morning sickness started to go away and I could stay away from the toilet for a prolonged amount of time, I started looking at Earth friendly household cleaners that were pregnant lady safe. I found a few and they seemed to work great but they were very expensive. It was at this time I started looking at cloth diapers. I was set on it from the get-go but dear hubby was not. He was very against it. I kept learning all I could about diapers while I researched other environmentally friendly household cleaners.

How many of you know vinegar and all its uses in the home? What about baking soda? I found out early on these are the only cleaners I need in my house. Vinegar is a wonderful disinfectant and it also doubles as a window cleaner. I keep a spray bottle of half water, half white vinegar under the sink and use it to spray down the counters in the kitchen, bathroom, and many other surfaces. It also cleans windows to a lovely streak-free shine. And for those of you wondering, the vinegar smell goes away after a minute or 2. What about baking soda? Shortly before my husband and I moved out of a house we were renting we began cleaning all those hard to reach places. One of them was not so hard to reach but often forgotten about: behind the knobs on the stove. Of course that area was covered in a nasty, sticky, grease. Anytime my husband would scrub it, it just smeared. I broke out some baking soda and made a paste with some water and it cut straight through the grease. Dear hubby was blown away. He told me afterwords he didn’t think it would work but he figured he would let me try it. One victory for the wife 😀

That was all while I was pregnant and cutting down on chemical cleaners. As we got nearer to the due date, I kept pushing cloth diapers since it would be another way to save money and hopefully would keep diaper rash far from our little man. My husband still said he would rather not. I managed to talk him into using reusable bags for groceries (at first he thought those were crazy as well) so I knew I would win with the diapers eventually. It took about 5 months after our son was born for him to crack. I just kept mentioning how much money we would save every time we bought diapers and finally! The moment I had been waiting for! I got approval to get the diapers. I think the thing that made him snap was when I showed him the diapers I wanted and had him pick out a print he liked. He found one really liked so I told him I would order 2 just for him. With that he caved. Little man is now almost 1 and in cloth diapers full time. We also plan on buying most, if not all, our produce from the local farmers market once it opens up (this weekend). We are also trying to find a nice line clothes drying rack so I don’t need to use the dryer that much. I can’t say my want to go greener and cut back on our carbon footprint goes back to cloth diapers because it goes back to the little bundle of joy those diapers save the butt of. Using cloth diapers full time makes me think all the other things we could do to cut back would not be that hard. If I can cloth diaper, I can do anything 🙂

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